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‘Big Beautiful Tweet’: Hard-liners rejoice at Musk’s megabill bashing

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Elon Musk’s bashing of President Donald Trump’s megabill sparked some conflict with congressional Republicans. But some deficit hawks were thrilled.

Several hard-liners rejoiced at Musk’s comments on X on Tuesday — calling the House-passed GOP megabill a “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill” and a “disgusting abomination.”

“These numbers are nothing short of stunning,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) responded. “Congress has hollowed out America’s middle class through reckless deficit spending and the inflation it causes.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has reiterated his opposition to the bill, said to reporters on Tuesday that Musk “has some of the same skepticism” as him that the bill is “just not conservative.”

Musk’s comments came less than two weeks after Speaker Mike Johnson carefully threaded the GOP megabill through his razor-thin majority. He managed to garner enough support from conservative hard-liners concerned over the bill’s multi-trillion-dollar deficit impact. But Musk’s comments reignited the conversation as the bill heads to the Senate.

The two hard-right House Republicans who voted against the bill quickly praised Musk for speaking out. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) called Musk’s post “The Big Beautiful Tweet,” while Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) responded, “He’s right.”

But most Republican senators — even very conservative ones — didn’t appear to share Musk’s assessment that the bill was hopeless. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he believed it would be salvageable with some adjustments.

“I think the Senate should make the bill substantially better, and I hope and believe we’ll do that,” Cruz said.

Any opponents will have to face Trump, who has already publicly bashed Paul and Massie on Truth Social for their prior comments. The president is pushing for the bill to pass with components, such as raising the debt ceiling and border wall spending, that the members have criticized.

“Sure, it helps bolster the case,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a key Senate deficit hawk, said about Musk’s post. “But again, the president wants to balance the budget as well.”

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Congress

Cornyn gets a big fundraising boost in Texas Senate primary against Paxton

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John Cornyn is not going down without a fight.

After months of polls showing the four-term Texas senator trailing in the Republican primary, a pro-Cornyn super PAC raised almost $11 million in the most recent fundraising period.

Texans for a Conservative Majority, the outside group supporting Cornyn in his primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, will have over $12 million cash on hand after the current fundraising quarter. The group has raised over $10.9 million in the quarter after Paxton announced his primary challenge against Cornyn.

Cornyn has been consistently trailing polls in the Senate primary against Paxton, whose indictment and impeachment over corruption and bribery charges left him well regarded by conservative grassroots activists loyal to Donald Trump but viewed skeptically by Republican operatives worried about his reception among swing voters in a midterm election.

“This first report shows what the armchair pundits fail to realize — this race is only beginning in earnest,” Aaron Whitehead, the executive director of the outside pro-Cornyn group, told Blue Light News. “With eight months to go before the March primary, Texans for a Conservative Majority is well positioned to take the fight to Ken Paxton and independently support Senator John Cornyn’s re-election.”

Texas’ primary will be held on March 3, 2026.

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Capitol agenda: Murkowski slams brakes on megabill

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s ability to pass the “big, beautiful bill” is hinging on Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

The Alaska senator has been the subject of an intense whip effort by GOP leaders over the past couple of hours as they try to offer her reassurances on Medicaid and food assistance. Thune, Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso talked to Murkowski on the floor for roughly an hour overnight. Thune and Murkowski huddled briefly in his office, and they were mum on details when they emerged shortly before 4 a.m.

Just moments ago, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that proposed SNAP carve-outs for Alaska and other states are compliant with the Byrd rule. But Republicans have struggled to get approval for a Medicaid provision also aimed at Murkowski’s home state.

Murkowski is also among the Republicans who have been pushing an amendment to undo the rollback of clean-energy credits under the Biden-era climate law.

Thune insisted to reporters moments ago that senators were closing in on the end of their vote-a-rama.

“We’re close,” he said, adding that they have a few more amendments from senators and a final so-called wraparound amendment to come.

In a potential sign of just how dire Thune’s whip count was looking in the wee hours, the majority leader huddled in his office with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who’s long said he would be a “no” on the bill over its debt-ceiling hike.

Another big unknown right now is where Sen. Susan Collins will fall. The Maine senator reminded us less than two hours ago that she’s “said all along that I have concerns with the bill” and also reiterated, when prompted by reporters, that she would have preferred breaking out the tax portion of the policy package on a separate track. Certainly not helping win Collins over: Her bid to boost money for rural hospitals went up in flames.

And major policy fights remain unresolved, including Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) divisive amendment to scale back federal payments under the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. Scott has leadership’s support on this one and said he expects it to pass. But several GOP senators have openly raised concerns with it.

What else we’re watching:

— Megabill goes to House Rules: Assuming the Senate passes the bill, the House is expected to bring the bill to the Rules Committee at noon on Tuesday, though two people with direct knowledge of the plans say it could get pushed amid delays with the Senate vote-a-rama.

— The next funding battle begins: Senate appropriators plan to move forward with marking up fiscal 2026 government funding bills starting next week. House Appropriations is scheduled to vote July 10 on the Commerce, Justice, Science bill and the Energy and Water Development bill. House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) wants to finish marking up all 12 funding bills by the end of July.

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Trump & Co. launch final megabill pressure campaign

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President Donald Trump and his top deputies have started their final public push to get the “big, beautiful bill” over the finish line as the Senate struggles to finish up the legislation.

Stephen Miller, Trump’s top policy aide, appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” Monday night, about 12 hours into the Senate “vote-a-rama,” to angrily rebut criticisms of the bill and fiercely defend its contents.

“I am sick and tired of the lies about this bill that have been perpetrated by the opportunists who are trying to make a name for themselves. This is the most conservative bill of my lifetime.”

Around that time, White House budget director Russ Vought took apparent aim at deficit hawks concerned about the expanding costs of the Senate version of the megabill in an X post. He embraced the Senate’s “current policy baseline” accounting, zeroing out the cost of extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts.

“Remember, those saying that the Senate bill increases deficits are comparing it to a projection where spending is eternal, and tax relief sunsets,” he said. “That is a Leftist presupposition, and thankfully the Senate refused to let the bill be scored that way.”

Shortly before midnight, Vice President JD Vance also weighed in on X, arguing that the megabill’s border security and immigration provisions alone made it worthwhile.

“Everything else — the CBO score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy — is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions,” he wrote.

Then, at 12:01 a.m., Trump himself posted to Truth Social: “Republicans, the One Big Beautiful Bill, perhaps the greatest and most important of its kind in history, gives the largest Tax Cuts and Border Security ever, Jobs by the Millions, Military/Vets increases, and so much more. The failure to pass means a whopping 68% Tax increase, the largest in history!!!”

Meanwhile, the Senate kept voting, with no final deal yet in sight.

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